Across the Universe
by SunLight
Summary: In another universe, Taichi's little sister never lived past childhood. Years later, in a world without Light, Takeru comes across a girl claiming to be Hikari Yagami.
1. Stranger in the Rain

_Updated author's note 060516 - re-uploading chapter 1 with minor edits._

_This story will unfold without much commentary for me so you can figure out the plot for yourself._

_I had made a promise here that I wouldn't abandon this story without resolution, which I did not keep. But it's not abandoned yet_

* * *

**Across the Universe**

SL

_A few months earlier_

His sister would have been sixteen years old today.

Taichi sat cross-legged on his bed, a framed photograph in one hand and a silver whistle in the other. The little girl in the picture beamed at him, a pair of bright eyes peering from a fringe of short brown hair, a whistle hung like a talisman around her neck. Even after all these years, she was so real to him. The tinkling sound of her laughter, the softness of her small hand, the way she called him _big brother_.

Evenings at home were now filled with silence, broken only by the drone of television programs nobody watched and the occasional mews of the aging family cat. He could easily envision his parents sitting on the couch, eyes empty and staring into nothing. Even now that he was hundreds of miles away for university, her ghost haunted him. He would sometimes awaken from sleep with a start, imagining that she had crawled under his covers after a nightmare.

Taichi rubbed his thumb over the tarnished surface of the whistle, and sighed.

A familiar buzzing suddenly caught his attention. He gently set down the artifacts from his sister's childhood before starting to rummage around. A dirty soccer ball rolled to the corner of the room; misplaced laundry fell out of a few drawers. His room might be small and bare, but the lack of furnishing hardly stopped his usual messiness from taking over. Eventually he managed to locate the D-Terminal, buried under a year's worth of chemistry exams.

He flipped it open, expecting a message from Koushiro or Sora, perhaps even Yamato, only to find that the sender was someone from whom he had not heard in a long time.

"Gennai?" he said aloud.

The message was short and cryptic, characteristic of the old man's correspondence. _For the light go directly to the source, not to any of the reflections,_ it read. _I received that in a fortune cookie once._

Taichi raised his eyebrows. Fortune cookie?

There was a short pause, and then he received a second message from Gennai. Once more, it was addressed to all the Chosen Children. This time, it read like an oddly composed poem:

_What was once lost could finally be found,_

_Seize the moment when it comes around._

_To borrow the true bearer of Light_

_And match the Darkness in a final fight_

_(Be prepared, Chosen Children.)_

All inclination to sleep had disappeared. Be prepared? _Prepared for what, Gennai?_ He typed and sent his response, knowing that an answer was unlikely. Gennai had always operated this way, ever since the Chosen Children's first encounter with him. Answers were earned, never carelessly shared.

As expected, the D-Terminal did not buzz again.

With a sigh, Taichi walked over to the window and pushed it open, letting in the cool winter breeze. It had snowed earlier, blanketing the campus in white and reminding him of a summer day long ago. When the adventure had first begun. When they became Chosen.

Much had changed in the intervening years.

He wondered how his friends would react to the message. Was it intended as encouragement, or was it a final warning from their old mentor that they only had one more chance to accomplish what they had long failed to do? If the latter, what was the endgame? What would happen if they failed again?

When he returned to his bed, the clock read one forty-three in the morning. His gaze fell once more on the photograph of his little sister. Five years old, with her entire future ahead of her.

"Happy birthday, Hikari," Taichi whispered, before he tucked away the D-Terminal and turned off the light.

* * *

**One**

**Stranger in the Rain**

_Here_

It was raining cats and dogs.

In hindsight, Takeru should not have suggested that they make a run for the subway station. By the time they realized their mistake and dashed back to the school building, both he and Hikari were completely soaked.

"This…was a bad idea," he acknowledged, as they tried without success to dry themselves in the entrance. The thin fabric of their school uniforms was no match for the rainstorm. Even umbrellas would have made little difference. "I'm really sorry about this. At least we could say…we caught the first thunderstorm of the year?"

Hikari brushed her wet hair out of her face and cracked a small smile. "Actually, I think _it_ caught _us_. That's all right though. It's a terrible idea, but I agreed to it."

"It may let down soon."

She looked skeptical. "Like how it got so much better the past hour? I doubt it."

"Well, I don't think we can hitch a ride on such short notice," said Takeru, glancing at his phone. "My mom is still at work for a few more hours and Yamato is out of town. Your parents don't own a car. Guess we'll just have to wait until it calms down."

"Not the end of the world." She tapped him on the shoulder. "Come on."

He was momentarily impressed. "Hang on. You got a plan?"

"Depends what you mean by a plan." She was completely deadpan. "I was thinking we might as well go to the library and get a head start on homework."

That was most definitely _not_ a plan. He stared at her. "Seriously?"

"Yeah." She had already started to lead the way. "You coming?"

Takeru shook his head in amusement and caught up with her in a few quick strides. One could always trust Hikari to be responsible and sensible. He grinned, though it soon faded upon noticing that his friend was shivering and her face had an unnatural pallor. He was reminded uncomfortably of a scorching day in the desert, when an eight-year-old him was looking down at a young girl with flushed cheeks and labored breathing.

"Hey, you feeling okay?"

She wrapped her arms about herself. "I'm fine, just a bit cold."

He hurriedly shrugged off the jacket of his school uniform. "Here," he said, placing it around her, his hands resting a few seconds too long on her shoulders. "That will help."

She stopped walking and turned to him, her expression changing from bewilderment to consternation once she realized what he had done. "I'm fine," she said. "Take your jacket back. You will catch a cold."

Takeru sighed in exasperation. Usually he found her complete lack of self-concern endearing, though there were times when he wished that Hikari realized in the process of trying to not cause problems to others, she tended to create even bigger problems down the road.

"Keep it. You look like you're about to get sick."

"I'm _fine_, so please –"

Before Hikari could finish her sentence, she started coughing. Without thinking, he caught one of her arms and pulled her toward him so he could press the back of his free hand against her forehead. It felt uncomfortably warm.

"Hikari, we need to get you home," he said, alarmed. "You _are_ getting sick."

She had gone very still at his touch, her eyes wide and her cheeks slightly pink. Once he was aware of how closely together they were standing, he promptly dropped his hand slowly and moved aside, wondering if he had just overstepped the boundary of friendship.

"I'm fine," she said, her tone a lot more subdued.

The rest of the walk to the library was quiet, the silence interrupted only by the squelching of wet sneakers on cement floor. Once inside and at a table, Hikari opened up a textbook and began what appeared to be her physics assignment. Meanwhile, Takeru found himself studying her worriedly, not bothering to keep up the pretense of work. She kept sniffling and one of her hands had wandered up to support her forehead. Maybe he should call his mother at work after all, she would understand –

Hikari caught him looking. "Takeru," she began, clearly about to tell him off, when the crack of thunder interrupted. She frowned. "Did you hear that?"

Takeru looked around. They were the only two students in the library. "Hear what?"

She had gotten up and walked to the nearest window. "I think I hear someone," she said, peering into the rain intently. "He's calling my name."

Her choice of word struck him. _Calling._ An uneasy knot began to form in his stomach.

"Who?" he demanded, joining her.

"Big brother," she murmured, after a few moments of consideration. "Big brother needs me."

"Taichi?" Takeru was incredulous. Taichi was attending university hundreds of miles away and wouldn't be back in town until the summer.

Instead of answering, Hikari turned around to head toward the library's exit, stopping only when Takeru grabbed her shoulders. This time, he was too worried to notice any awkwardness.

"Where are you going?"

"Outside," she said, struggling to pull free. "Takeru, let go."

He only gripped her shoulders more tightly. "Hikari, it's pouring out there," he said. "You can't go out there when you're already sick."

"But big brother is calling me," she insisted, meeting his blue eyes with earnest brown eyes. "And…and so are you, Takeru."

Now he was certain that she was delirious. "Hikari," he said. "I'm right here."

She shook her head stubbornly. "I have to go," she said. "You both need me. I have to answer the call."

Takeru felt chills down his spine as he recalled what happened the last time Hikari answered such a call. She ended up in a dark monochromatic world with misshapen creatures who wanted her as their bride, and it was due to sheer luck that he showed up in time to save her.

He drew closer until their faces were inches apart. "I'm not letting you go."

Without warning, she shoved him away. They stared at each other, shocked as much by the action as the strength by which she performed it. Even during their rare fights, Hikari was never one to utter even a harsh word, let alone attempt to physically hurt someone.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, before she took advantage of his surprise to run out of the library.

Once he recovered, Takeru chased after her. The hallway was empty. Heart pounding, he ran outside and saw nothing through the gray curtain of rain. There was no sign of her anywhere, no green silhouette, even though she only had a few seconds' head start.

"Hikari?" he cried, panic settling in. _"Hikari!"_

His call was met only by the shrieks of the wind and the pattering of rain. She was gone.

* * *

_There_

It was raining cats and dogs.

Takeru learned the expression in English class two years ago, where the teacher was promptly greeted by a sea of puzzled faces. "What's that supposed to mean?" someone asked, and when the teacher explained that it was a figure of speech, Takeru had been mildly amused. Little did they know that Takeru actually had seen cats and dogs, or what passed for cats and dogs in the Digital World, fall from the sky.

Today he wouldn't have been surprised if actual cats and dogs were falling out of the sky. The storm was so intense that he wondered whether the entire Pacific Ocean was being upended over his high school. Between the flashes of lightning and the flickering lights, he tried to focus on the papers scattered before him. The next issue of the school newspaper was due to be out on Friday and there was so much that remained to be done, especially when most of the staff opted to go home. Unfortunately, as the editor-in-chief, he didn't have that option.

Most students didn't take the school newspaper very seriously. That also included the staff. The writing quality varied but was overall quite low, and the articles themselves were dull to read, since the reporters often eschewed the topics Takeru assigned for something silly, like the correlation between lunch food and hospital visits. Only one person actually did her assignment, yet her article was so full of grammatical and factual errors that he despaired of fixing it in time.

As he drew a red pen through a run-on sentence about the high school's falling enrollment, there was a prolonged crack of lightning that seemed to shake the whole building. Takeru glanced at his watch. Six thirty. He grimaced. His mother would be home soon and he'd promised to make dinner tonight. Of course, she would understand if he were late, given her own profession as a newspaperwoman. Nevertheless, he knew how worried she would be. These days, parents in Tokyo rarely let their children out alone at night.

He began sorting the articles into neat piles for perusal tomorrow before grabbing his backpack and umbrella. The campus of the high school, an acre consisting of a few tall buildings and a few patches of grass, was deserted. He was grateful for the solitude. Even among the Chosen Children, he generally preferred to be alone. Having been the youngest since the adventure started, he respected and trusted the older children, though privately found difficulty relating to them.

He stopped suddenly, his foot having connected with something too soft to be cement. Squinting through the rain, he saw a girl lying on her side, apparently unconscious.

Takeru bent down to get a better look. She was wearing the green school uniform – two jackets, in fact – so she must go to the high school. It was rather strange that Takeru did not recognize her. Having been on the school newspaper since the start of high school, he knew practically all of the student body, even if only by sight.

Three thoughts occurred to him then in quick succession. The first was that she could not stay out here in the rain, because she would surely get very sick. The second was that he was going to miss the next train home if he stayed here any longer. And the last was that she could be dangerous.

Takeru considered his options. The right thing to do, he supposed, would be to take her to the police station, since the school nurse had most likely gone home for the day and the girl obviously couldn't stay on the ground. On the other hand, she could be one of _them_, maybe even a trap. Did he really want to risk helping her?

Just as Takeru was leaning toward leaving her here, but alerting the campus security so she would be found sooner rather than later, he caught sight of her sleeve and froze. Threaded in black was the name, _Takeru Takaishi_.

Very slowly, he glanced down at his own sleeve to find the same words. His mother had been sewing his name on his jackets since he was a child, supposedly so that she could never lose track of him. The stitching on the girl's jacket was exactly the same.

Takeru took a deep breath. It took only a few seconds to make up his mind. He would just have to give his mother an excuse for bailing on dinner tonight.

He set down his umbrella, letting it fly away with the wind, and awkwardly pulled the girl into his arms. She was heavier than her slim frame would imply, her soaked clothes having added weight. He allowed her head to settle against his shoulder before he straightened and made his way back into the school building. Fortunately, he did not come across anyone. Once inside, he set her on the floor and dialed a number. The phone rang twice before someone picked up.

"Takeru? Is that you?"

He relaxed at the sound of the familiar voice. Sora was the only one of the older children to have stayed in Odaiba for university, although she had moved out into her own apartment.

"Sora, it's me."

"Everything okay?" She sounded surprised and he did not blame her. The children tended not to contact each other outside of emergencies.

"Are you busy?"

"Well, my shift at my mom's shop starts in an hour," she said slowly before repeating her earlier question, "Is everything all right?"

"Can you come pick me up?" Takeru said. "I need your help but it's too complicated to explain over the phone."

Sora was momentarily silent. He knew that it was due to her curiosity rather than her reluctance to help. Certainly anyone being asked to drive out into a rainstorm needed answers. However, he also trusted her to be someone who could understand the gravity of the situation without demanding more details.

"Where are you right now?"

Takeru glanced at the girl. "I'm currently at the school," he said. "The high school. Can you come soon?"

"Okay," she said, and he heard the jingling of keys in the background. "I'll be there in ten minutes."

* * *

The aging Honda Accord grunted as Sora slowly pulled it onto the street, making sure to first look twice as her father had taught her. Not that she really needed to worry. A combination of weather and the attacks kept the streets of Tokyo deserted, even though it was typically rush hour.

In all honesty, she was grateful for the excuse to tell her mother that she couldn't work her shift at the flower shop today. Although her relationship with her mother had improved over the years, it did not change the fact that Sora was very much a tomboy at heart, preferring the excitement of sports to the delicate art of flower arrangement. She did try to enjoy it, but cataloguing inventory, even on a rainy day, felt oppressive.

As a girl, she had dreamed of achieving athletic glory far away from her mother and Tokyo. It hadn't been a far-fetched dream. She'd always held her own against the boys on the soccer pitch and led her high school team, which had then been completely unknown, to the regional championships twice. The walls of her childhood bedroom were adorned with her medals and trophies. Coaches, some from overseas, had begun scouting her in her second year of high school.

Her friends had been puzzled when she turned down several athletic scholarships, all from schools with well-regarded soccer programs. Instead, she chose to stay in Odaiba for university, trading the thrill of dorm life for a small apartment a few blocks away from campus. She still played soccer on the college team, although even an amateur who watched her play could tell that she was a talent gone to waste.

Taichi, especially, had been uncharacteristically angry about her decision.

"What are you doing?" he had demanded, the summer before he and the others left Odaiba. "Why are you throwing your future away?"

"Am I really throwing my future away?" she retorted. "Do we really have a future?"

Taichi bit his lip and his shoulders slumped. For a while, he was silent, and then, with his eyes still on the ground, he asked, "Don't you want to escape from all of this?"

Sora had looked around the small park where they were meeting, her eyes lingering on the jungle gym with the peeling green paint. Of course she wanted to escape from the city that was a constant reminder of their failure. She didn't need to see the children with the cold dark eyes or watch the news reports of yet another young woman gone missing, any more than her friends did. But what she wanted to do and what she could do were two different things. Her mother and the flower shop needed her, Odaiba needed her, Takeru needed her, and even more than that, escape wasn't so simple.

"Who's to say that we're safe anywhere else, Taichi?" she said softly. "Tokyo is not his last target. You've watched the news reports. New York…Paris…Hong Kong…"

He raised his head to look at her, suddenly angry again. "Then you're just going to stay and wait for the world to fall apart?"

"Yes," Sora had said, "because when it does, I will be ready."

The rain was starting to come down even more heavily than before. She could barely see through her windshield even with the wipers on. Fortunately Sora knew the way to the high school quite well. She parked the car in front of the school building, blatantly ignoring parking rules, and honked her horn once. Takeru emerged, looking as if he'd gone swimming with his clothes on.

Then she blinked, realizing that he was not alone. He was holding someone in his arms and, judging from the green uniform, that someone was also a student at the high school. Well, she thought, unlocking the doors, this was an entirely unexpected reason for requiring a ride.

Takeru opened the back door and carefully laid the girl across the backseat of the car before he joined her in the front. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm getting your car completely wet."

She shrugged. "It's an old car," she said. "It's going to smell funny no matter what we do."

Takeru gave a half-laugh, as if he weren't sure whether Sora was joking. To be fair, she wasn't sure herself. Rather than dwelling on her humor, both of them returned their gazes to the third occupant of the car. Heart-shaped face, dark brown hair. Hardly distinguishable, plus she had never taken much interest in underclassmen. When she noted the girl's flushed face and shallow breathing, she raised her eyebrows.

"Is she okay?"

"Probably not," Takeru said. "She's burning up."

Sora frowned as she turned the steering wheel. "Did you want to take her to the hospital then?"

"I was hoping that we could go back to your apartment and contact Jyou, actually."

Sora glanced at him sharply. Takeru's obvious indifference toward the girl clashed with the rather personal request. She could come up with only one possibility.

"She's not –"

"I don't know if she's one of them."

"Who is she then?" When he didn't answer, she added, "Do you even know her?"

Takeru looked taken aback, as if he had never considered whether he knew her. "No," he said. "I've never seen her before today."

It was getting hard for Sora to keep her impatience in check. She had to stop herself from asking, "Then why are we helping her?" Instead, she tried to keep her tone casual as she said, "Takeru, I want to help you, but you are going to need to give me more information than this. What exactly is going on here?"

"Could we please wait –"

"No," Sora said. "If you don't tell me _something_ I'm just going to drop her off at the nearest police station and take you home."

Takeru sighed. "All right," he said. "Could you pull over after the next light? I need to show you something."

Once the car had slowed to a stop, Takeru unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the girl in the back seat. He grabbed her arm and held it up. It took Sora a minute to see what he wanted her to see. On the girl's sleeve, threaded in black, was Takeru's full name. Sora lowered her eyes to Takeru's own sleeve, where she found the same name.

"I only have one jacket," Takeru said, "and I'm wearing it."

"Then that's not your jacket," Sora said, before she realized that she had just said something ridiculously obvious.

"Nobody but my mother embroiders my name like that. That's definitely _my_ jacket."

"You just said you have only one jacket," she pointed out. "So that can't be your jacket."

The two stared at each other before Sora sighed.

"Let's start over," she said. "Maybe she just knew your name."

"Why would anyone put _my_ name on their jacket?"

"She might have a crush on you," she suggested.

The possibility sounded reasonable to her, but Takeru only gave her a funny look and brushed the possibility aside. "There's another thing," he said. "I'm pretty sure that she doesn't go to the high school. I go through proofs for the photography section on a daily basis and just helped the yearbook staff organize senior portraits. I have never seen her in any of the pictures, not even in the background."

"So she doesn't go to your school."

"But she's wearing the school uniform, and I found her at the school."

"Maybe she was visiting."

"If she's visiting, then what is she doing passed out on the grounds after hours?"

"Okay, listen," Sora said, coming to a decision. "I still have some theories, and I'm sure you do too, but chances are neither of us would be right and we're just going to keep contradicting each other. What we need are answers from your new friend, who's obviously in no condition to talk. I'm guessing that's where my apartment and Jyou come in."

Takeru nodded. "Thank you."

She shook her head as she shifted gears and stepped on the accelerator. "You better call your mother though," she said. "You will probably be home pretty late."

His eyes grew round and he began to fumble in his backpack for his cell phone. "Oh shoot, I completely forgot about calling her. What should I say?"

"Tell her you're helping me with something that just came up and that I'll drop you off later," she said. "It's not too far from the truth and she will know that you're safe."

Takeru shot her a grateful look. "Thanks Sora."

Sora did not respond. She listened quietly to Takeru's side of the conversation as he explained the situation to his mother. He looked serious, almost a little tense, the same way Yamato looked whenever he spoke to his parents. As if they were treading on glass, afraid of saying the wrong things. Children of broken families. Her hands clenched the steering wheel more tightly. Now was not the time to think about her father.

After Takeru finished calling his mother, they were silent the rest of the drive. The rain was still heavy, although the thunder and lightning had finally stopped. After parking, Sora led the way upstairs to her apartment, where Takeru waited politely outside while she grabbed a handful of towels from the closet and spread them over the bathroom floor.

"Before anything else, we need to get her out of these clothes," Sora said, as Takeru laid the girl down on the towels. "I have some old clothes that might fit her. Could you go give Jyou a call in the meantime?"

Takeru nodded and left the room. Once Sora heard him talking to Jyou, she took a deep breath and returned her attention to the girl. She had seen other girls in locker rooms, had bathed with complete strangers in public bathhouses, but she found the prospect of undressing this girl awkward and wrong.

Eventually, she managed to change the girl into some old clothes that she had outgrown years ago. As she was putting the girl's wet clothes away to be put in the dryer later, something fell out of the pocket of the girl's skirt. She picked it up, her expression changing with recognition.

There was a knock on the bathroom door. "Jyou will be here in ten minutes."

Sora rose to her feet and opened the door. "Look what I found," she said. "In her pocket."

She held up a pink and white Digivce. Takeru took it, studying it for an unnecessarily long time before he handed them back.

"Who is she?" he asked, clearing not expecting an answer.

Sora put the Digivice in the cabinet. "Let's worry about that later," she said, running a hand through her hair. "Can you put her on my bed? Then both of us need to dry off and have some hot ginger tea. Yamato will kill me if you catch a cold from all of this."

"I think we've been through worse," Takeru said, as he bent down to pick the girl up.

"Nevertheless, Yamato will kill me," Sora said, managing to draw a small understanding smile from the younger boy before she headed into the kitchen.

* * *

Jyou couldn't pinpoint the exact point in his childhood when he decided that he wanted to be a doctor. It was probably just the natural course for a quiet, awkward kid who grew up in a household with a father who was already a doctor and an older brother in the midst of medical studies. He received his first toy doctor's set at three years old and, for his first Halloween, tried to fashion his own scrubs out of old shopping bags.

Mimi liked to say that until he became a Chosen Child, being a doctor was just a dream. Then it was a calling. That was true enough. He didn't understand suffering and death until he saw Digimon disintegrating into data, and didn't understand the satisfaction of treating patients until he had to bandage friends with his limited medical knowledge.

Nevertheless, the path to becoming a doctor was rough, and today was one of those days when he questioned his own sanity. He was wading his way through anatomy notes, in the middle of a cram session for his final exam. If he were to do well, he would earn the right to dissect an actual human cadaver. For someone who still had trouble squashing flies, the thought alone was threatening him to upend the contents of his lunch.

Just as he was recalling the difference between _visceral pleura_ and _parietal pleura_, his cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID and reached over to silence it. There were a total of two people whose calls he would answer under any circumstances and Takeru was not one of them. He turned his attention back to his notes, studied a diagram of the lungs, and decided the right answer was _parietal pleura_.

His phone rang again. This time, the caller ID read Sora.

"Sora?" he said, flipping his phone open. The other Chosen Children sometimes made fun of him for being the only one of them who had yet to upgrade to a touch screen model.

"Actually, it's still Takeru," said the younger boy. "Sorry."

Jyou momentarily pulled the phone away from his ear to glare at it. That was a lowly trick. "Takeru," he said. "I have a pretty big exam tomorrow. Can this please wait?"

Takeru was silent, which was as polite a "no" as he was going to get. Of course.

He sighed, tapping his pencil against the desk. "What can I do for you?"

"Can you be at Sora's apartment in ten minutes?"

Jyou dropped his pencil. "Do you realize that I'm currently at Dokkyo?"

Takeru called his bluff. "It takes less than ten minutes to set up Digital Gates."

Jyou retrieved his pencil and rolled his eyes. Dokkyo Medical School might be over two hours out of Tokyo by train, but distance was never an issue for the Chosen Children. Not for the first time, he wished that Koushiro was not the computer whiz he was and hadn't managed to figure out how to configure Digital Gates. Sure, he understood the necessity in instances when the children needed to gather immediately. Sometimes, however, one had to weigh saving the world against passing his exams. Too often, the fate of the world pleaded a weaker case.

"Is this a meeting?" he asked.

"No, but we really need you. Jyou," he added softly, "we've always been able to count on you."

If he had been anyone but Takeru, Jyou would've dismissed the plea as a pathetic attempt to flatter or guilt him into agreement. But this was Takeru, and Takeru had always been straightforward. He wasn't someone who dropped meaningless compliments, the way that, say, Mimi might to get her way.

Jyou gave one last, longing glance at his school work. His gut told him that this was important, and indeed, he did learn once upon a time that he was reliable.

"Fine," he said. "I'll be there in ten minutes."

It actually took him fifteen minutes to arrive at Sora's apartment. Three minutes to locate his Digivice, five minutes to turn on his computer and activate the Digital Gate on his end, five minutes for Sora to turn on _her_ computer and set up the gate on her end, and two minutes to go through the Digital World.

He found himself in an untidy heap in Sora's bedroom, an unfamiliar setting since she moved after he began medical school. Ever the tomboy, the walls were adorned with posters of tennis and soccer idols and the shelves were lined with some of her more recent soccer and tennis trophies.

Sora and Takeru had been sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the computer, but scurried out of the way when Jyou landed in front of them.

"Hey," Takeru said.

"Glad you could come over," Sora said, helping him to his feet. "You all right? Tea?"

Jyou nodded vaguely at them. "Earl gray if you please," he started to say, before his eyes fell on Sora's bed and he gave a start. There was a girl sleeping there. He rubbed his eyes. She was still there.

"Who –"

"I found her on campus," Takeru explained. "We don't know who she is."

Jyou blinked and turned to Sora for answers. Had he missed something? Neither Takeru nor Sora was known for charity. Certainly they wouldn't just let a stranger sleep on Sora's bed, of all places.

Acknowledging his confusion, she got up and headed outside, returning with a dripping green jacket that was part of the high school uniform. She handed it over to Jyou, who examined it with a frown. As far as he could tell, it was nondescript, except that it obviously belonged to Takeru since his mother sewed his name on the sleeve of almost all his clothes. Whether or not that actually worked was still up to debate, though he did get his fair share of teasing at summer camp.

"She was wearing it," Takeru said, "and it isn't my jacket."

Jyou studied him. He was wearing an identical jacket and looked way too serious for his comment to be a joke.

"She also has a Digivice," Sora said. "A different color from ours." She paused meaningfully. "The new kind."

Another Digivice. Jyou exhaled, remembering what extra Digivices entailed the last time they appeared. He had way too many questions at this point, some of which he couldn't put into words, so he just asked the most obvious one. "Where do I come in?"

Sora had resumed her seat on the floor. "Well, she would probably give us a lot of the answers we need, but she's in no condition to talk."

"So you want me to play doctor here?"

When Takeru and Sora nodded, he resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He should've guessed. This was a role that he had played all too often before. Skinned knees, sore throats, injured Digimon. Apparently everything was within his area of expertise despite the lack of formal training and a medical license.

Jyou moved closer to the bed to get a better look at the girl. She had short brown hair and a delicate, pretty face that was for some reason vaguely familiar. When he noticed her flushed face and shallow breathing, he reached over to feel her forehead. It was burning. His hand slid down to the side of her neck, where he felt her weak but frantic pulse.

He snatched his hand away. "She needs the hospital." When the other two children exchanged a nervous look, he sighed. "Look," he said. "What if it's not just a fever? She could die if she's not treated properly. You're not seriously going to risk someone's life just because she somehow knows your name and might be one of the children? Not to mention I'm pretty sure it's illegal to hide a stranger in your home."

He was staring pointedly at Sora, a silent reprimand that she should have known better. She held his gaze and then bit her lip, conceding the point. When Takeru opened his mouth, presumably to argue, she gave him a slight shake of her head.

"Then what do you think –"

She stopped suddenly. The girl on the bed was moving, awakened by the loud voices. With what appeared to be great difficulty, she opened her eyes. She seemed dazed and a little frightened as she gazed around her surroundings. Then she locked gaze with Jyou. To his shock, she wore a smile of recognition.

"Jyou," she said, her voice weak but clear. "Jyou, I'm glad you're here."

The room had suddenly become too quiet, broken only by the girl's coughs. Jyou was frozen in place as she reached forward and gave his hand a small squeeze. Only after she had slipped back into unconsciousness did he slowly turn back to Sora and Takeru. The shock on their faces proved that he had not imagined the entire exchange.

Jyou could not think of a single thing to say. He exhaled and realized that he was trembling. He understood now why Takeru had been so affected.

Sora, noticing if not understanding his distress, stood up to take charge. "I will show you the medicine cabinet," she said. "Even if we're taking her to the hospital, let's try to stabilize her fever first. Takeru, could you – could you please –"

Her voice trailed off and closed her eyes briefly, as she always did whenever the necessity of being the sensible one in the group fell too heavily on her shoulders. Yamato might be the unofficial leader and Koushiro might be the computer genius, but in face of important decisions, Sora was the one everyone listened to.

Looking concerned on her behalf, Takeru got to his feet as well and lightly touched her sleeve. "Sora, are you okay?"

She nodded without opening her eyes. "Could you please contact as many of the others as possible?" she said, reprising her train of thought as if no interruption had occurred. "We need to talk."

* * *

_Here_

_What was once lost could finally be found,_

_Seize the moment when it comes around._

_To borrow the true bearer of Light_

_And match the Darkness in a final fight_

_(Be prepared, Chosen Children.)_

Koushiro stared at the message thoughtfully. A few minutes ago, he was submitting his assignment for the graduate level operating systems course at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Then his computer blacked out and his D-Terminal, which had been hooked up to the computer for some experimentation, buzzed.

Evidently, Gennai was the sender. That was strange. He hadn't contacted them in ages, certainly never through the D-Terminal. They ran into him often enough during their Digital World visits. Now that everything was safe, their mentor had become much less secretive. And, Koushiro thought, much less cryptic.

He read over the poem again, mulling over one particular word. Light. He wondered whether Gennai's message had anything to do with Hikari.

As if in answer to his question, the computer screen started flickering. Though nothing appeared on screen, Gennai's voice was coming through the speakers.

"Koushiro, can you hear me?"

"Er, yes," Koushiro said, pulling his chair closer. "Good to hear from you again."

"Did you just receive a message?"

"You mean the poem from you? Yes. What is it about? Is everything okay in the Digital World?"

Gennai said only, "I didn't send it."

"You didn't? But the sender –"

"_I_ didn't, but _Gennai_ did," said the old man. "Parallel lines aren't meant to meet, you see, but he is getting desperate. They are all getting desperate. Tell everyone to take care. I will be in touch again."

"Who –" Koushiro began, but the computer screen darkened. The old man was gone.

Koushiro frowned, his mind now far away from his lost assignment. Parallel lines? A Gennai who wasn't the Gennai he just spoke with?

_Be prepared, Chosen Children._

He bit his lips. Despite Gennai's eccentricity, he was hardly ever wrong, which meant that he had to take his words at face value. He needed to warn the others.

The computer flickered again, the screen returning to normal. Immediately, Koushiro logged into his email account to start typing a message.

As it turned out, he was already too late.

* * *

_tbc_


	2. Waking Dreams

_I'm sorry for disappearing for two years despite saying I wouldn't. There are personal reasons, but this story is also difficult to write - it was envisioned as a one-shot but I wanted to stretch myself, and maybe bit off more than I could chew._

_Thank you so much for your patience. __Hope it's worth the wait._

_If not, I'll keep trying! The heart of the story will be established in the first five chapters so important for me to get them right._

* * *

**Two**

**Waking Dreams**

_There_

From his cross-legged position on Sora's bedroom floor, Takeru listened to the rising voices in the living room. Yamato and Koushiro had turned up within an hour of his message, despite such short notice. Mimi, who lived in America and hence in a different time zone, promised to get in touch the next day. Taichi couldn't be reached at all, although that was typical as of late.

In any case, Taichi and Mimi weren't missing much. Even he, who had helped organize the meeting, excused himself partway saying that he wanted to check on the stranger. Nobody called him out on the absurdity of the excuse.

Takeru ran a finger across the familiar bump on his cheek and sighed. He was tired. Tired of hashing together the next plan in an endless sequence of plans. Tired of the digital and the physical world. Tired of the constant battles followed by the inevitable disappointment. They had been fighting for the past eight years and victory, a poorly defined concept from the beginning, was still nowhere in sight. More and more children were succumbing and for all they knew, there was no cure, no hope of reversing the effects.

Worst of all, Takeru could tell that his older brother was starting to crack under the strain of leadership. Yamato was not born to be a leader, nor was he an effective one. Someone so introverted and cautious should have been the dark, brooding lead singer of a rock band, wooing teenage girls while singing sweet nothings. Instead, his older brother was constantly figuring out what to do next, telling everyone what they should do, and then second-guessing everything before starting from scratch. If it hadn't been for Sora and Koushiro, and occasionally Taichi when he wasn't in one of his funks, the group would have fallen to pieces long ago. Even now they weren't far from disintegration.

Takeru would be lying not to admit that part of him was almost looking forward to this. A resolution, even one of the worst kind, was better than none.

He got up and walked to the window, leaning his forehead against the cool panes. The rain had finally stopped, giving way to another starless night. He missed Patamon, who now spent most of his time in the Digital World with the other Digimon. For a while, especially during the elementary school years, the children had tried weaving their partners into their regular lives by pretending they were stuffed toys or exotic pets. It had made sense then too. They hadn't started communicating through D-Terminals, so it was much more convenient to keep their Digimon close by in the event of attacks. As attacks became more frequent, monsters in general became recognized as something to be feared. At the same time, more and more of the other children began appearing, with their infected partners. The Chosen Children were being actively hunted, so keeping their Digimon around became a liability. Revealing their Chosen status not only endangered themselves, but also their families and friends.

There had been one particularly close call two years ago. Two dark Digimon had attacked a carnival at the high school attended by the older children, attracted by the scent of the Chosen Children's Digimon, which sent over fifty students to the emergency room, some with lasting disabilities. Takeru's friends had escaped mostly unharmed through sheer luck and well-timed perfect evolutions from Piyomon and Gabumon.

Eventually, Yamato came up with the proposal that their partners should stay in the Digital World, on call only. Their Digimon allies still had strongholds, and nighttime was generally safer there.

Takeru had not been a fan of the idea. "That's what a coward would do!" he had argued. "You're putting us on the defensive. Are we just going to keep hiding?"

"Confrontation is not the solution," was the retort. "We need to come up with a plan before we do anything!"

_Plan._ He hated that word. They never had plans.

He bit his tongue, however, before he could say something that might shatter the last of his brother's fragile ego, hoping that someone else could speak up in support. He'd seen the same frustration on Taichi and Sora's faces when he scanned the room. Taichi, especially, looked as if he were fighting the urge to talk. However, neither spoke up. Sora was too prudent to contradict their leader and Taichi was too indifferent.

That was the last time Takeru actively participated in a meeting. It just wasn't worth getting invested anymore.

There was a movement from the bed. Immediately alert, Takeru turned to find the girl awake. When she noticed his presence, she gave him a small smile.

"Takeru?"

Even though it shouldn't surprise him that she knew his name, he was still unsettled. Especially because she had spoken it with such familiarity.

He didn't answer.

The girl turned back to face the ceiling. "No, you're not him."

He figured she was still somewhat delirious. He asked, not really expecting a response, "Who are you?"

The girl closed her eyes again. He thought she had fallen asleep again until she said, softly but very clearly, "Hikari Yagami."

* * *

_Here_

Sora raised a hand to shield her eyes against the early morning sun as the portal to the Digital World faded. She had almost forgotten how bright and colorful the Digital World was, after a few months of not visiting. Between school, tennis tournaments, and a long-distance relationship, there wasn't much time leftover to cross dimensions, nor was there much need. Piyomon lived with her full-time, alternating between Sora's school and her mother's flower shop.

Timeliness had never been a strong suit of the Chosen Children. As Sora came upon the forest clearing, she noted with some amusement that as usual, she was one of the first ones. Koushiro was staring intently at the screen of his laptop, and Yamato gave her a casual wave when he spotted her. She waved back and took a seat beside him.

"Any bets on how long it would take for everyone to get here?" he said.

Never a morning person, he was fighting back yawns. Sora shook her head and slipped her hand into his. "We would both lose," she said. "Were there…any updates?"

Yamato's smile disappeared and he shook his head. Last night, the Chosen Children had received two messages from Koushiro in quick succession on their D-Terminals. The first was a poem, apparently composed by Gennai, which meant that it didn't make sense. The second was cryptic in a different way. _Takeru confirmed my suspicions about Hikari. We need to meet tomorrow before class. Digital World, 7.00 am. Don't bring your Digimon._

She glanced over at Koushiro, hoping he might offer some insights, but he was immersed in what appeared to be strings of binary numbers and did not answer. He probably hadn't even noticed her arrival.

Yamato followed her line of sight. "I don't think he even realizes I'm here. But if you think about the two messages –"

Before he could finish his thought, he was distracted by the sight of his younger brother, making his way towards them without his school uniform jacket. Takeru looked upset. Yamato released Sora's hand to feel his forehead as he took a seat across from them.

"You feeling okay? Why aren't you wearing your jacket? You didn't get sick from the rain last night, did you?"

"No, _I'm _fine," Takeru said.

The older brother frowned and Sora wondered if he had caught the inflection in Takeru's response. Where was Hikari? They were usually inseparable.

Despite a nagging worry in the back of her mind, Sora felt a familiar warmth as the other Chosen Children started to arrive, some alone and some in pairs. It was so rare nowadays for everyone to be together outside the annual reunions and the bigger holiday events. She didn't worry about the children growing apart – they had survived too much together for that – but there had been a special camaraderie during their adventure days that was difficult to recapture in peaceful times.

After greeting Iori and Miyako, who then joined Takeru and Daisuke on the grass, Sora caught up with Mimi to hear about her latest recipes. Nearby, Jyou and Ken quietly discussed a biology paper that was in the news. Yamato was lying on his back, staring thoughtfully at the sky. Nobody talked about the purpose of Koushiro's meeting or the meaning of his messages; experience had taught everyone to leave the explaining to him.

Hikari remained conspicuously missing.

Taichi was the last to show up, hair unkempt and jacket haphazard. He did not seem apologetic though. He stood in front of Koushiro, clearing his throat, until he finally tore his eyes away from the screen. The young man seemed a bit surprised to see everyone assembled around him. Though he might be one of the youngest teaching assistant at his school, his childhood shyness and awkwardness never completely disappeared.

"Hello, thank you for coming on such short notice. I hope you all had a chance to read the poem I sent last night."

There was a murmur of agreement, but Sora noted with some amusement that Daisuke and Taichi were trying to surreptitiously glance at their D-Terminals.

"It's one of Gennai's riddles, isn't it?" Mimi said. "What does it mean?"

"Yes, and no. It is Gennai's riddle, but it's not _o__ur_ Gennai's riddle."

As usual, Koushiro had a knack for dropping bombshells. Taichi glanced up from his D-Terminal. "There is more than one Gennai?"

"Have any of you heard of the concept of 'parallel universes?'"

"Sure, in science fiction movies and theoretical physics papers." Miyako, an aspiring engineer, was frowning. "Those couldn't really exist…could they?"

"Ten years ago, we wouldn't have imagined that corporeal digital worlds existed, but here we are."

The group fell silent as they digested Koushiro's words. It was Taichi who spoke again. "Can you explain now what this has to do with Hikari's disappearance?"

Sora inhaled sharply. The only person unfazed by the revelation, other than Taichi and Koushiro, was Takeru, who was currently paying intense attention to the pineapple icon of Koushiro's laptop.

"Let me back up a bit." Jyou and Mimi tugged Taichi, one on either side, to a seated position. "The theory of parallel universes state that there are many universes in addition to our own. Remember when we stormed Vandemon's castle eight years ago? We were looking for the gateway back to the real world and we were able to do so with the correct arrangement of cards. But we also ran the risk of ending up somewhere else entirely had Taichi put them down incorrectly. A universe unlike our own." Koushiro turned now to Ken. "And do you remember that when you first came to the Digital World, you had a friend named Ryo, even though he seemed to have come from a different dimension entirely and you never saw him again?"

Taichi and Ken both looked startled. They clearly remembered the experiences, but had not interpreted them as extraordinary even for the Digital World.

"Of course, universes are parallel for a reason: the law of parallelism states that they aren't supposed to ever meet. But Gennai – our Gennai that is – believes they are getting desperate."

"Hikari said that they were calling her."

"Hang on. Who's _they_?"

"Yes, this poem is their call for help as well." Koushiro read it aloud, repeating the verse, _to borrow the true bearer of Light._ "_They_ are our equivalents in this alternate universe. The Chosen Children. And they need Hikari. As a result, their Gennai must've somehow established a portal to our universe and asked Hikari to come."

"So Hikari is…gone?" Mimi's uneasiness was mirrored on everyone's faces. Sora found Yamato's hand and gripped it tightly. When you put it like that…

"That's right, she's gone from our universe. For the time being."

"Do we know where she went?" Daisuke demanded. "What does this other place look like?"

Koushiro shook his head. "I couldn't establish contact with the other universe, nor with the other Gennai, so I currently have no idea where exactly she went or what that universe looks like. It might look exactly like ours, it might look completely different." He paused. "However, my _guess_ is that it is far more dangerous, if the Chosen Children there are willing to breach parallelism to take Hikari."

Far more dangerous.

_To match the darkness in a final fight._

"We can go help her, can't we? We just need to figure out how to establish the portal to the other universe ourselves." Miyako looked nervous but determined. Sora remembered that she had saved Hikari from the Dark Ocean before.

Taichi managed to shake off Jyou and Mimi. "Exactly. Koushiro, how can we go there too? That Gennai can't expect Hikari to save the world alone."

"Wait," Yamato said, before Koushiro could answer. "There's a more pressing question, Taichi. What are you going to tell your parents? They must already be worried if she didn't come home last night. What are you going to tell the high school? Takeru and Miyako might be able to cover for Hikari today, but that won't work if we don't find her by tomorrow."

Taichi clapped his hand to his forehead and swore under his breath. "That's right," he said. "What am I going to tell Mom and Dad? Last night when they asked I had to say she was visiting me…"

"That excuse might work for the weekend. Is that enough time?" Jyou sounded doubtful.

"You could say that Hikari is visiting me," Mimi suggested. "I'm far away so she'll need a longer visit."

Yamato shook his head. "It's the middle of the school term. You can't just take a trip across the country out of the blue."

"A school trip?" Miyako said. "Some teachers take their classes on week-long trips."

They considered this idea, but Jyou shot it down. "She will still need her parents' permission. Besides, I don't think taking trips is the most believable excuse in the long term."

"We could –" Ken began, but Miyako interrupted before he could finish.

"Nothing that would involve the police, Ken. Detectives work differently in real life."

"Right," Taichi said with a groan. "Next someone will be telling me to just tell my parents the truth."

"Actually," said Iori, and all eyes turned to the youngest Chosen Child, "I think that _is_ the best alternative, Taichi. Our parents know about the Digital World, we should give them more credit. They will be very worried, but they've seen us go through worse…and come back safely."

Taichi clenched his fists, accepting the younger boy's wisdom. "All right, I'll call Mom and Dad right after this. I'll…think of some way to explain all of this." He sighed. "I can't – I can't tell them Hikari's gone without reassuring that we can find her though. How _will_ we find her?"

Left unspoken, _it has to be possible, right?_

"There…might be a way," Koushiro said. "Back to what we were saying about Vandemon's castle, Taichi, and the cards…"

* * *

_There_

Takeru burst out of the bedroom, pale as if he'd seen a ghost. Yamato, who had been in the middle of talking, immediately stood up and grabbed his brother's shoulders.

"What is it? Are you okay? Are you sick?"

Takeru wriggled away impatiently, eyes flitting between Sora and Koushiro. "Taichi. We need to talk to Taichi."

Sora rose to join them, concerned and a little bemused. "I've already sent another message to Taichi," she said, eyebrows knitting together. "Still couldn't reach him. What's going on?"

The younger boy bit his lip and came to a decision. "Do any of you know a Hikari _Yagami_?"

There was no response at first from the room. Yamato looked torn between confusion and relief. Jyou looked as if he wanted the meeting to be over so he could return to his textbooks. Koushiro's face was closed, but his expression tended to be unreadable. Sora herself felt a faint tugging of memory, but the touch was too light.

"Are you sure you heard the name correctly?"

Sora threw Yamato a frown. She knew he felt responsible for saying something whenever the group fell silent for too long, but he rarely came up with anything that actually moved along the conversation. Questioning his brother's memory was not productive, especially given how infrequently Takeru spoke nowadays in group settings.

Takeru sounded testy. "Maybe I misheard Hikari, but she definitely said Yagami. Do you think…she knows Taichi?"

This time, it was Koushiro who broke the uncomfortable silence. "Taichi had a little sister…I think her name might've been Hikari."

Sora froze. _Of course._ The little girl who was always tagging along Taichi to all of their soccer practices, who cheered at every soccer game, the little girl with the whistle around her neck. She had worshipped the ground that her brother walked on and Taichi had basked in her admiration, even though he'd always pretended to be embarrassed. One day, however, the little girl stopped coming to the practices and the games. Sora hadn't been very close to Taichi then, had barely known his family beyond surface introductions, so she didn't ask. By the time the two of them became best friends, the missing little sister had long disappeared from her mind.

"I never knew Taichi has a little sister," Jyou said. "We've never met her."

"Had," Koushiro corrected. "She died over ten years ago."

Once the implications of his revelation sank in, Yamato seized Takeru's shoulders again, protectively pulling his younger brother closer. "Are you telling us that we – we found a _ghost_?"

"Let's not jump to conclusions," Sora said. "She seems human enough to me. Besides, if Taichi's little sister died over ten years ago, she couldn't possibly have been high school aged. Ghosts don't…age." Her voice trailed off and she felt ridiculous, trying to combine common sense and ghosts in the same sentence.

Takeru didn't notice. "She was also wearing my jacket, big brother. You know, the one that Mom embroidered."

"And she somehow knew my name, even though I didn't even meet Taichi until summer camp."

"She could also just be one of the infected children." That was Sora's pet theory from the very beginning. "Pretend to be a long lost relation with a fake name, learn our names and faces so it seems like she knows us, maybe she's seen Takeru's jacket so she could copy the embroidery…"

"Hikari. Light." While the others argued, Koushiro had pulled up something on his laptop that he was frowning at. "I wonder if there's a connection."

They crowded around his laptop curiously. "What are you looking at?"

It was the message that Gennai had sent them a few months ago, with the fortune cookie message and the poem. Sora, like the rest of them, had dismissed the message as yet another one of his unsolvable riddles.

"I don't remember Taichi's sister's name, but if Takeru is right, Hikari also means light. And that comes up a few times in Gennai's message. _For the light go directly to the source. To borrow the true bearer of Light._ And remember, there was one crest that we never found. The Crest of Light." Koushiro looked up to make sure that they understood his next words perfectly. "It belonged to the eighth Chosen Child."

Sora suddenly felt cold dread creeping through her. For some reason, the possibility that the girl in her bedroom was the eighth chosen was far more disturbing than the girl being a ghost or one of the dark spore children.

"We need answers," Yamato said. He had released his younger brother and looked tired, drained. "Let's try to get hold of Taichi again."

"There's another thing we could do." Everyone turned to Takeru. "We could talk to her."

* * *

Hikari had tensed when the bedroom door opened. Even in her groggy state she had overheard bits and pieces of the conversations outside, enough to know that there were strangers and they did not trust her. She felt her shoulders relaxing when Sora and Koushiro entered, before she reminded herself that they were not the Sora and Koushiro she knew. Traveling to different dimensions had long ceased to faze her, but traveling somewhere that was so eerily close to her own world was disorienting. She couldn't explain how she knew that she didn't belong here, but she knew that this was not home.

Koushiro lingered by the door, hand still on the doorknob and stance uncomfortable. Sora approached the bed slowly under Hikari's wary gaze. As she came closer, the girl wondered if she had traveled to a different universe as well as forward in time. This Sora looked older, or perhaps that was the illusion created by the bags under her eyes and the thinness of her lips.

She fought an automatic flinch when the older girl pressed the back of her hand to her forehead.

"Still a bit feverish, but you seem better." She sounded like Sora, her voice clear and soothing. Even the touch felt familiar. "Jyou is warming up some medicine for you. How are you feeling?"

"Better." Her head still felt like lead, but the pillow underneath felt soft and comfortable. "Thank you."

"Do you think you could talk to us for a bit?" She added, when Hikari hesitated, "We want to help you, but we also have a lot of questions."

Because the words seemed sincere, she nodded. Sora gestured for Koushiro to join. Both of them pulled up chairs to sit by the bed. She studied Koushiro curiously, although he was carefully avoiding her eyes. He looked the same, although perhaps his hair was more peppered with gray than the friend she remembered.

"I'm guessing you already know our names." Sora didn't wait for a response. "Can you tell us yours?"

"Hikari Yagami." She noticed the change in Sora and Koushiro's expressions but she was too tired to speculate why.

"Do you remember how you got here?"

"I was…at the high school." It was raining very hard. Takeru had given her his jacket. She was trying to finish her physics assignment early for once. "Then I – I ran outside." Voices. Her brother calling her. She couldn't tell them that because that sounded crazy even to her own ears. "And then I woke up here."

"Takeru did find you at the high school. You had collapsed on campus." Sora gestured around. "We brought you here. This is my apartment."

Hikari thought about the boy who left the room so abruptly. He hadn't recognized her, had seemed scared by her, so she wondered why he had chosen to help her. "Thank you."

"Is this yours?" Sora was holding out her Digivice.

"Yes."

"Are you a Chosen Child?"

"Yes."

"Do you have a Digimon?"

"Yes."

"Have you been to the Digital World?"

"Yes."

Sora and Koushiro were taking turns asking questions now, yes or no questions about places in the Digital World – _do you know where File Island is? –_ and different Digimon and other people who visited or lived there – _do you know who Gennai is? Do you know infected children? _These were basic, simple questions, and she was grateful that she could give quick, short answers without thinking too much. There was still a heavy fog in her head. In addition, Sora and Koushiro also seemed to visibly relax with every answer, and no longer looked at her with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.

"Does…light mean anything to you?"

Hikari blinked. Koushiro looked serious. For the first time since she awakened, she suddenly wondered whether there was a Hikari in this world.

"That's my crest," she said.

Sora audibly exhaled. "So you are –"

She never finished. There were shouts outside. Then the door slammed open with such force that the ceiling light rattled, startling the three of them. With some effort, Hikari turned to get a better look at what was going on. She gasped.

It was Taichi. He was rambling.

"Sora, I didn't get your message until just now, but Yamato was just telling me –"

His eyes fell to the bed and then met Hikari's, and the girl involuntarily shuddered. Whereas the brother she knew was joyous and full of life, if sometimes too impulsive, this Taichi Yagami had a face that was drawn downwards, as if the muscles there had never lifted in laughter. His eyes were a dull brown and even his crazy hair seemed subdued, defeated. He reminded her of a man she had once seen on television, a man who had lost his family in an earthquake. She had never been able to forget the despair on the man's face, the tears in his voice as he described his young children, lost forever.

"Hikari," he breathed.

_Big brother,_ she began to say, except this wasn't her big brother. So she kept silent.

He came closer, shaking off Yamato, who had grabbed his shoulder. Sora murmured something in warning but he did not seem to hear.

"You've grown." He spoke with wonder. He reached out to touch her hair, as if to reassure himself that she was really there. "Do you remember me?"

Once again, Hikari wondered what had happened to her counterpart to cause such a reaction. She had a sinking feeling about the fate of this Taichi's Hikari. Neither _yes_ nor _no_ sufficed as an answer; she certainly remembered her own brother, but he wasn't…. She gave a small nod.

Taichi straightened and seemed to realize, for the first time, the strangeness of the moment. "But – how –" He turned to Sora and Koushiro, and then at Yamato behind him. "What did I miss?"

Koushiro took his arm and gently led him away from the bed, towards Yamato and the door. "Let's catch you up outside. Hikari needs rest."

Sora followed with a quiet, "Jyou will be here soon with your medicine."

Hikari slumped back onto the pillow, feeling exhausted. Before she fell back into an uneasy sleep, she glanced at the small calendar on Sora's bedside table.

_June 6, 2007. _Somehow, just hours earlier she had been doing her physics homework, and now she had ended up in a world where Hikari Yagami – she was sure – did not exist.

* * *

Yamato had to turn away when Koushiro led Taichi out of the room. It was that look on Taichi's face, so dazed and helpless. He thought back to the first time they had met at camp. Part of him had been drawn to Taichi's brashness, his courage, but part of him also felt that what defined Taichi the most was an unspeakable sorrow.

Sora shut the bedroom door behind her gently. Then she went to the kitchen to exchange a few words with Jyou. In the meantime, Koushiro quietly caught them up on their conversation with the girl inside.

"She is definitely a Chosen Child," Koushiro concluded. "She has a Digivice, a Digimon partner, and knows the Digital World perhaps even better than we do. And because she has the Crest of Light, I want to say…she's the eighth Chosen Child."

To Yamato, the futile search for the eighth child felt like lifetimes ago. He didn't feel excited that they might have finally found her. "Do we know why she's here?"

"I have a theory, which is a bit out there, but…" Koushiro glanced up as Sora and Jyou joined them. "Do you remember the gate in Vandemon's castle?"

Yamato sat, thoughtful, as Koushiro explained his theory about the existence of parallel universes, that there was at least one universe out there where the eighth child existed, and she had now come over – likely with some help from Gennai – to help them. It sounded completely crazy, something out of the movies, but then again the Digital World was not really a place known for logic and consistency.

Koushiro faced Taichi. "There's one thing I need to know to be certain. Taichi, do you mind if we…learn more about your sister?"

"Hikari was three years younger than me," Taichi said. "We shared the same room since she was a baby so we were very close growing up. She was always a bit sick. I always think she caught something the night when Parrotmon and Greymon fought. Something was always a bit – well, anyway."

His eyes were boring into Sora's paint-chipped wall. "When she was five, she came down with a fever, so she stayed home from school. My parents asked me to watch her after school. It didn't seem serious. She was sitting up and watching TV and everything, so I took her to play soccer in the park. She got…pneumonia and collapsed. The ambulance had to take her away. My parents were at the hospital for three days, but…they…the doctors I mean…couldn't…"

Taichi spoke in disjointed sentences, as if he had never shared the story before. Perhaps he hadn't. Yamato closed his eyes briefly. If something had happened to Takeru under his watch – if he had been the reason –

"That was the last time I saw her. On one of those rolling stretchers being pushed inside the emergency room. They didn't let me see her after she…and then we just never mentioned her again. Took down her pictures, put away her things, just…nothing left." He ran his hand across his eyes quickly. "I don't think my mom has ever forgiven me for…well…"

As Taichi's voice trailed off, Sora reached over to pat his arm. She said nothing, and Yamato doubted that even she could find the right words.

"I guess…that explains why we never found the eighth child," Koushiro said softly, as if a final puzzle piece had fallen into place. "Why Vandemon couldn't either, even though he's still searching…"

They had now all accepted, though unacknowledged explicitly, that the girl was the long-dead Hikari Yagami and she was the eighth child.

"But maybe now that she's here, if Gennai sent her here…" Jyou was pulling up his old messages. "She could help us win the fight, that's what he's always said about the eighth child."

He turned, eyes imploring, to Yamato.

Yamato thought once that he would enjoy being the leader. That lasted for a total of two days before he decided he would much prefer playing harmonica in a corner. By then it was too late. Nobody else wanted to assume leadership in face of the unknown. Even though – _let's face it _– he was a terrible leader. He never made the right calls the way Sora could, and never had the right insights the way Koushiro easily could. He also didn't execute well; Taichi had saved his butt multiple times after battle plans gone awry. The worst of all, he wasn't good at keeping the group together. Mimi was already distancing herself, with college as an excuse, and Jyou was not far behind. The only credit he could give to himself was that he somehow kept going. To where, nobody knew.

He should be happy that they found the missing chosen, the secret weapon against Vandemon. But he thought about the plans he would have to make, the battles that they couldn't now avoid, and he wanted to scream at the unfairness. As if the burden on his shoulders had not already been too heavy.

"I don't know that we should listen to Gennai anymore and let him lead us around like fools." Yamato's head jerked in shock towards his brother. The red scar on his cheek always stood out when Takeru was angry. "And the eighth chosen is a child, just like us. Why would anything change?"

"It's been a long day," Sora cut in, "and I think we all need some rest. How about let's regroup tomorrow? Yamato, just let us know when. Mimi will be able to join then too. Takeru, I can give you a ride home."

Yamato gave her a grateful look.

"That sounds good to me," Jyou said, yawning. "I need to get back to Dokkyo. Sora, Hik-_Hikari_ should be fine for tonight. I'll check back in tomorrow morning to see if she still needs to go to the hospital."

Koushiro started setting up Digital Gates on his laptop. "Give me a few and I'll get you guys going."

Yamato wasn't sure if Taichi was going to say anything, but he stood up too. "Yeah, I should get going too. I'll – let me know when you want us tomorrow."

He looked uncertainly between Yamato and Sora.

Takeru alone said nothing. He remained on Sora's couch, jaw set, and Yamato knew that he would voice out against anything they decide on tomorrow.

With a twinge of pain, he thought about the little boy who had been so enchanted with the Digital World, who used to reassure him that everything was possible if they fought together and tried hard enough. At some point, the enchantment ended. His gratitude and admiration for Gennai transformed into distrust and dislike; his excitement to fight alongside the other kids turned into dread. Every new place was just another battlefield, every new friend was just another potential casualty. And now the little boy with the bright eyes was a stranger who almost _wanted_ to lose.

It was unfortunate and ironic, Yamato thought, that Takeru's crest was Hope.

* * *

_tbc_


End file.
